Haeppy Art 2016 – Day II

I finally got a few minutes to sit down and give you a recap of day two of Munich Artists at the Haeppy Art Fair and how Munich Artists Playing Cards did during the two-day event.

Day Two

I was running late… again. I don’t seem to have a mental clock for switching from the subway to the sbahn and then walking to the Praterinsel. I left home about the right time and then found myself still 7 minutes late. This put me in a bit of a pickle because I wanted to go take photos of people and I needed to be at my fence selling cards so I kind of spent a few minutes mulling over this and decided to risk a missed sale to go take some photos of artists I knew (when I could find them.)

Here is what I learned the second day.

My plot of fence had more light and was more “valuable” to the other artists who believed that light was an essential quality for selling their art even though I was not near a window.

During the weekend, I saw people grab pieces off the fences and then take them over to the light to look at them so this light deficit was quickly fixed by the visitors when they were interested in a piece of art. Nir Avner who was in the basement with no light whatsoever sold a photograph so light did not deter a determined buyer.

One artist on my floor (you can see in the photo below) installed little lights that were on batteries. She said that the batteries lasted for about 6 hours the first day and only 2 hours the second day so this source of lighting was a bit temperamental and required a backup battery pack somewhere in your art stash.

One artist had a flashlight (He decided not to use it.) and another had a construction light positioned on his sculptural paintings.

Why am I spending so many words writing about light? There was no special lighting at Haeppy art and light was a big topic of conversation. As I mentioned yesterday, Haeppy art was a barebones art fair and the artists even though they knew this ahead of time, still had their feathers ruffled by the fact that the fair was barebones.

Munich artists was not ruffled. I knew people would walk up to the cards and look at them at about six inches away – which is exactly what they did and if they wanted a deck of cards, they would buy them. (You can support us by buying a deck here.)

Happy Customer at Haeppy Art

2. People can sell art at Haeppy Art – Tanja who you see above, sold a few photographs which were priced a little under 200 Euro. Her work was hung simply on the fences using clips and she wrapped her pieces carefully for each buyer. Tanja is on the other side of my fence and you can see from the photo below, she has a tiny bit of light on her fence. I am not going to let light take credit for her sales, I think people just liked her colourful photographs.

My Neighbour Ansgar also sold a couple of medium sized pieces of his colourful work. Ansgar said that people really liked his work and he got a request for a commissioned piece. Ansgar is from Augsburg and has 200 pieces of art on ArtFinder. It really amazed me how many people wandered over and took his card and asked about his abstracts. At the end of Sunday, Ansgar left to head back to Augsburg a very happy artist and I learned that colourful abstracts and an art filled ipad attracted buyers at Haeppy Art.

3. Fences make it easy to hang artwork. I found hanging the artwork on the fences much easier than putting it on a wall. I think I would play with the fence a bit more now that I know what it is like to hang things from a fence. I don’t think fences made a big difference to the visitors. They were looking at the artwork and touching everything on our fence display. Not one person commented on the fence.

4. The crowd on Saturday and Sunday were totally different people but we sold the same amount of cards on each day. The people on Saturday came in three waves. The first wave were young families with strollers. The second wave were young people in groups and the third wave were older people. On Sunday, the crowd was mixed all day long and people were more critical of the artwork and the crumpiness level of the visitors was higher. It was on Sunday that I saw people who were dragged to the fair by their significant other (SO). The SO would point at a piece of art and their partner would just roll their eyes and take a drink of their beer. This is the exact same reaction my daughter would have if I ever tried to get her to go to an art fair that was not animation related. She is not an art fair kind of girl.

5. People loved Munich Artists playing cards. Most of our playing cards were purchased as a gift for someone else. I guess it is a safe gift and you don’t have to worry whether the person will like it or not. There is no stress that you bought the wrong colour artwork or that it isn’t their style. We did have a few people buy them for themselves but, the majority went away as Birthday and Christmas gifts.

6. Our poster with all of the playing cards did not sell but was used as a reference sheet by the buyers. They looked at all the cards on the poster and then walked over to look at all the cards in the plastic sleeve and then they would ask some questions. The buyers said the cards were too small on the poster. I now know the cards are too small on the poster. We will be making paper bags out of those posters or letting stores who sell our cards have a poster to show in a display.

7. The best result comes when you have no expectations. I heard artists complaining that they were not happy but I’m not sure what they were expecting. I had in my head that haeppy art was going to be a bit like the Christmas market at MF but the artists treated it like a classic art fair and I think that was the problem.

The buyers were not buyers from a classic art fair. They were people who wanted new things for their apartments or homes. They wanted art the could live with and could afford.

From the artists I talked to, the ones with no expectations went home happy and those who had high expectations were disappointed but you can’t blame the art fair for this disappointment. If the fair happens again next year, the artists will have some idea of what sells and can stock their fences accordingly.

8. The variety was amazing. There really was something for everyone and I saw lots of people walking around with bubble wrapped artwork. The diversity of the artwork created by Munich Artists always surprises me. Even though there was great variety, I saw lots and lots of faces. I’m not keen on having other people’s faces in my house and I wondered if people were buying faces. I know Corinna sold a few prints but how about the photographers?

Eight is enough for today. If you decide you want a deck of cards and you don’t want to buy them online, you can stop by Frauenstrasse 18 and pick up a deck. Just email me emmy@kyfio.com and we will set up a time to meet.

The cards will also be for sale at Maximilianstrasse 33 starting on november 3, 2016.

Hi Hazel! That is what happens when you write at 2300. I was so tired but wanted to get the post up and off my to do list. I corrected the error and could never mistake the two women in person! In fact, I was opposite Nina the whole weekend so maybe that was why Nina was floating in my head. Katrin Klug also caught the mistake. I also left out some names because the business cards are at the studio and I’m at home editing. Hopefully Raiko came out even or in the black so he will try this again.